Virtually every vehicle in use today carries a spare tire for emergency purposes. A great many techniques have been used to store the spare tire within the vehicle, often without any concern to the convenience or ease of removing the tire for use. This lack of concern exists even though the very need for use of the spare implies an emergency situation has arisen where one of the tires on the vehicle has failed. Unfortunately, tires often fail in inconvenient locations and in inclement weather, situations which compound the difficulty of tire retrieval.
A number of attempts have been made in the past to simplify access to the stored spare tire. However, many of these designs are so complex as to be simply impracticable. Vehicle manufacturers are resistant to complicated mechanisms which are expensive to manufacture. Further the complexity of a device often decreases its reliability.
The problem of retrieving the spare tire is amplified when considering a vehicle such as a pickup, or other truck. The spare wheel can be very heavy and awkward for anyone. Even a spare tire used on a common passenger car can be quite difficult for an elderly or weaker person to work with.
Therefore, a need exists for a more effective way of storing and retrieving a spare tire within a vehicle which does not require the exertion of an extraordinary effort to retrieve the tire when needed.